State Election Commissioner V. Nagi Reddy informed on Monday that the reservation of wards for Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) across Telangana (141) will be finalised by July 14 and on the very same day, the final list of voters will also be published. This will be followed immediately by the election notification, he affirmed.
Draft voters list will be ready by July 10 and this will be municipality wise as well as ward wise. Citizens can file their objections and suggestions with the respective municipal commissioners by July 12. The voters list used in the Assembly elections has been taken into consideration to prepare the voters lists, said Mr. Reddy.
Talking to press persons after a meeting with representatives of various political parties at his office, the SEC said the elections will be held through the ballot papers and there are about 50 lakh voters in ULBs. A meeting is scheduled to be held with the district collectors and superintendents of police on July 11 and on July 13 a meeting will be held with municipal commissioners to finalise the election plan.
Expenditure limit
Each polling station is likely to have about 800 voters and a expenditure limit of ₹2 lakh has been imposed for the contesting candidates in municipalities and it will be ₹3 lakh for candidates contesting in the municipal corporations. While the recognised political parties will be having their traditional symbols, others parties will be allotted symbols as per the SEC norms, said Mr. Reddy.
While the ruling TRS welcomed the notification, the opposition parties questioned the hurry in which it was issued without giving time for objections and delimitation of wards.
The Telangana Rashtra Samithi Party is ready to face the municipal polls as it was sure to win whenever they are held, claimed its leader G. Ramachandra Rao. He was critical of the Opposition parties for seeking postponement of the elections and welcomed the decision to have 800 voters for each polling station. However, he observed the election expenditure list of ₹2 lakh was too high and wanted the Commission to keep a tab on the spending.
Later, Senior Congress leader Marri Sashidhar Reddy, in a chat with the presspersons, sought postponement of polls since the enumeration of backward classes has not been completed while Telugu Desam’s R. Chandrasekhar Reddy wondered how objections will be tackled in such short time frame. He blamed the government for the delay in holding the polls and now for doing it in a “hurry”.
‘Why hurry’
BJP’s S. Malla Reddy strongly opposed the delimitation of wards without releasing the voters list which itself could take up to a week’s time. He wanted to know why the polls were being held in a “hurry” in 14 days when the High Court was informed it would take 119 days.
CPI’s P. Venkat Reddy feared that many voters may not be able to exercise their franchise because tight schedule announced for verification of voters lists. Enough time should be given for taking into considerations any corrections to be made. It was also not necessary to hike the expenditure limit and wondered if the SEC is adequately equipped to deal with the spending spree by the candidates. Even CPI-M’s Narasimha Reddy opposed the hike in expenditure limit and wanted it to be limited to ₹1 lakh. He also questioned the alacrity with which the poll process is being taken up.
